Questioning and Answering Practices across Contexts and Cultures

This book showcases innovative research about the multi-functional and dynamic interrelatedness of questioning and answering practices in institution- and culture-specific interactions ranging from under-explored to extensively researched ones: South-Korean talk shows, Japanese interviews, Chinese news interviews, police-civilian interactions in the USA, Italian interviews and courtroom examinations, Japanese parliamentary debates and Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK Parliament.
Challenging the view that questions are asked with the purpose of seeking information and eliciting answers, these studies open up new research avenues through insightful investigations and critical scrutiny that problematize the question-answer paradigm, through which meanings are conveyed, negotiated and/or contested, and through which relationships are established, maintained and/or challenged. Significant findings show that questioning and answering strategies are shaped by the specific norms and constraints of particular communities of practice, while at the same time they are shaping the very same communities of practice. This book will appeal to interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners across the linguistic, media, political, legal and social sciences.

John Heritage, University of California at Los Angeles:
How and why questioning and answering patterns vary across cultures is a perennial topic for the language sciences. This volume makes an important contribution to this task. It offers innovative explorations of a considerable range of question-answer patterns in institutional genres through empirically diverse and theoretically cutting-edge studies. A most welcome addition to the literature, opening new research avenues.